The life of renowned physicist and author Stephen Hawking was celebrated Saturday in English city of Cambridge, with hundreds of well-wishers lining the streets for a glimpse of the hearse carrying his remains to a private funeral.

In what can sometimes feel like a sea of darkness, Stephen Hawking was a shining light for motor neurone disease sufferers. I cannot emphasise enough how important he has been to me personally since my own diagnosis with the same disease last year, and I am sure thousands more people around the world. When you are told that you might have MND – an agonising process that takes months – your head spins. The first thing you see online is that life expectancy is between one to three years from diagnosis. Fear sweeps over you. The next thing you look for is examples of people who have defied MND and there is no better example than Professor Hawking. Like most people, he was told he only had a few years to live when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of MND, at 22. He ended up sticking around for more than 50 years. That may be a statistical anomaly but straight away, you think: ‘why can’t that be me too? Why can’t I live until I am 76 or longer?’ He was the first person that made me realise that the doctors might be wrong and that the worst-case scenario can be overcome. But it is not just how long he lived, but how he lived. MND will take away most of your bodily functions and your independence, something that, as a former Scotland rugby international, I can barely comprehend, but there is one thing that it does not affect – your brain. Professor Hawking proved that you can still achieve truly remarkable things even once you have lost control of your body. He refused to let his circumstances dictate what he could accomplish and he changed our understanding of science in the process. The wheelchair was made entirely irrelevant; I just found that so inspiring. What I have found since being diagnosed aged 47 is that hope is the single best pill you can take for MND. If you think positively that you are going to beat it, that filters into everything you do. The day you think that MND has got you is the day the disease wins. That means you have to think positively every day. You are trying to do things to prove that MND isn’t going to get a hold of you all the time, whether that is simply lifting a coffee cup, or going to the gym and lifting weights. Doing all these little things gives a middle finger to MND to say: ‘you are not going to stop me living my life.’ Doddie Weir, left, and Scott Murray during training at Murrayfield in 1999. Credit: RUI VIEIRA /AP The issue with MND is that your own timetable becomes a mystery. When it came to my own diagnosis, which followed a year and a half of symptoms, I was told that I would be in a wheelchair within a year: yet here I am, still standing, still telling bad jokes and wearing terrible suits. You have to believe that you can at least influence your own timetable, even though you don’t know what that is going to be. I know I will eventually be trapped inside my own body, but his example shows that life does not end there. Without wishing to pretend that I knew his circumstances particularly well, I am sure he relied upon a team of people, family, friends and carers to help him through some of the dark times. Sometimes the support of those crucial people can be forgotten. Yesterday was a tremendously sad day, and so too are the ones that will follow: for so long, he has been a figurehead within the MND community, and now he is gone. We will have to ask, ‘who is going to be the next Stephen Hawking? Who is going to be the next person in the MND community who we look up to?’ Even now, he leaves the most inspiring of legacies. He may have lost the final battle, but he definitely won the war against this wicked disease. One day, hopefully, we will develop the drugs that allow every MND sufferer to live as long as Professor Hawking did, and to enjoy an even better quality of life. That has become my mission with the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. If I was to take one message from his life, it would be never give up, and I don’t intend to ever stop battling MND. The fight goes on.

In what can sometimes feel like a sea of darkness, Stephen Hawking was a shining light for motor neurone disease sufferers. I cannot emphasise enough how important he has been to me personally since my own diagnosis with the same disease last year, and I am sure thousands more people around the world. When you are told that you might have MND – an agonising process that takes months – your head spins. The first thing you see online is that life expectancy is between one to three years from diagnosis. Fear sweeps over you. The next thing you look for is examples of people who have defied MND and there is no better example than Professor Hawking. Like most people, he was told he only had a few years to live when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of MND, at 22. He ended up sticking around for more than 50 years. That may be a statistical anomaly but straight away, you think: ‘why can’t that be me too? Why can’t I live until I am 76 or longer?’ He was the first person that made me realise that the doctors might be wrong and that the worst-case scenario can be overcome. But it is not just how long he lived, but how he lived. MND will take away most of your bodily functions and your independence, something that, as a former Scotland rugby international, I can barely comprehend, but there is one thing that it does not affect – your brain. Professor Hawking proved that you can still achieve truly remarkable things even once you have lost control of your body. He refused to let his circumstances dictate what he could accomplish and he changed our understanding of science in the process. The wheelchair was made entirely irrelevant; I just found that so inspiring. What I have found since being diagnosed aged 47 is that hope is the single best pill you can take for MND. If you think positively that you are going to beat it, that filters into everything you do. The day you think that MND has got you is the day the disease wins. That means you have to think positively every day. You are trying to do things to prove that MND isn’t going to get a hold of you all the time, whether that is simply lifting a coffee cup, or going to the gym and lifting weights. Doing all these little things gives a middle finger to MND to say: ‘you are not going to stop me living my life.’ Doddie Weir, left, and Scott Murray during training at Murrayfield in 1999. Credit: RUI VIEIRA /AP The issue with MND is that your own timetable becomes a mystery. When it came to my own diagnosis, which followed a year and a half of symptoms, I was told that I would be in a wheelchair within a year: yet here I am, still standing, still telling bad jokes and wearing terrible suits. You have to believe that you can at least influence your own timetable, even though you don’t know what that is going to be. I know I will eventually be trapped inside my own body, but his example shows that life does not end there. Without wishing to pretend that I knew his circumstances particularly well, I am sure he relied upon a team of people, family, friends and carers to help him through some of the dark times. Sometimes the support of those crucial people can be forgotten. Yesterday was a tremendously sad day, and so too are the ones that will follow: for so long, he has been a figurehead within the MND community, and now he is gone. We will have to ask, ‘who is going to be the next Stephen Hawking? Who is going to be the next person in the MND community who we look up to?’ Even now, he leaves the most inspiring of legacies. He may have lost the final battle, but he definitely won the war against this wicked disease. One day, hopefully, we will develop the drugs that allow every MND sufferer to live as long as Professor Hawking did, and to enjoy an even better quality of life. That has become my mission with the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. If I was to take one message from his life, it would be never give up, and I don’t intend to ever stop battling MND. The fight goes on.

NASA paid tribute to cosmologist Stephen Hawking following his death early Wednesday morning. SEE ALSO: The world reacts to the death of the much-loved Stephen Hawking NASA shared a video on Twitter that Stephen Hawking recorded for astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata on the International Space Station in 2014. Remembering Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist and ambassador of science. His theories unlocked a universe of possibilities that we & the world are exploring. May you keep flying like superman in microgravity, as you said to astronauts on @Space_Station in 2014 pic.twitter.com/FeR4fd2zZ5 — NASA (@NASA) March 14, 2018 In his message Hawking talks about experiencing microgravity, i.e. weightlessness. "For me, this was true freedom," said Hawking. "People who know me well say that my smile was the biggest they'd ever seen. I was superman for those few minutes. "I can only imagine what it's like for you, Rick and Koichi, to fly like Superman for six months." WATCH: How did this baby octopus suddenly change color?

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking may have passed away Wednesday morning, but the legacy he left will be felt for many years to come. Once the news of his death had reached Reddit, a thread about the legendary scientist was started on the r/science board. One of the links re-shared at the top was from Hawking's Reddit AMA, which took place two years ago. SEE ALSO: The world reacts to the death of the much-loved Stephen Hawking Many of his answers, which you can read in full in the thread, discuss the risks associated with artificial intelligence. On the evolution of AI Comment from discussion Prof-Stephen-Hawking's comment from discussion "Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!". On the need for 'beneficial intelligence' Comment from discussion Prof-Stephen-Hawking's comment from discussion "Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!". On the possibility of AI exceeding human intelligence Comment from discussion Prof-Stephen-Hawking's comment from discussion "Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!". On the reason why AI could be a threat to humans Comment from discussion Prof-Stephen-Hawking's comment from discussion "Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!". On 'technological unemployment' Comment from discussion Prof-Stephen-Hawking's comment from discussion "Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!". Finally, as a bonus, here's his favourite film, song, and the last thing he found hilarious. Image: reddit WATCH: I watched a week's worth of TV in a day

British physicist Stephen Hawking was one of the most famous sufferers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the fatal neurological disease that paralysed his body but did nothing to curb his contribution to science. The rare condition normally claims the lives of those who have it within two to three years of diagnosis, making Hawking’s five-decade fight to overcome the disease an extraordinary exception. The neurodegenerative condition attacks the motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, hampering their ability to communicate with muscles and control voluntary movements, leading to eventual paralysis.

Stephen Hawking, who has died aged 76, was Britain’s most famous modern day scientist, a genius who dedicated his life to unlocking the secrets of the Universe. Born on January 8, 1942 — 300 years to the day after the death of the father of modern science, Galileo Galilei — he believed science was his destiny. Most of his life was spent in a wheelchair crippled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neurone disease that attacks the nerves controlling voluntary movement.